We use cookies on this website, including web analysis cookies. By using this site, you agree that we may store and access cookies on your device. You have the right to opt out of web analysis at any time. Find out more about our cookie policy and how to opt out of web analysis.

Human capital effects of marriage
payments

Elevator pitch

Payments at the time of marriage, which are
ubiquitous in developing countries, can be substantial enough to impoverish
parents. Brideprice and dowry have both been linked to domestic violence
against women, and inflation in these payments has prompted legislation
against them in several jurisdictions. Marriage payments are often a
substitute for investment in female human capital, so from a welfare and
policy perspective, they should be prohibited. This highlights the
importance of promoting direct economic returns over legal and customary
rights.

Key findings

Pros

Dowry can lead to higher bargaining
power for women.

Dowry can lead to higher male human
capital investment.

Brideprices value the productivity of
females.

Dowry can increase female rights to
inheritance.

Marriage payments transfer wealth to
the next generation.

Cons

Dowry and brideprice are associated
with domestic violence against women.

Dowry payments force parents to
disinvest in female human capital.

Brideprices hinder the bargaining
power of women.

Marriage payments are large enough to
impoverish parents.

Initial processes of development
inevitably cause marriage payments to evolve to the detriment of
women.

Author's main message

Marriage payments evolve in response to economic
forces, and the initial processes of development inevitably cause marriage
payments to act to the detriment of women. Such payments should be
prohibited, and parents should be encouraged to invest instead in their
daughters’ human capital. Governments should promote programs to empower
women through female education subsidies and targeted employment and
micro-credit schemes. Indeed, marriage payments will disappear once women
reap more equal economic opportunities relative to men.

Motivation

Payments between families at the time of
marriage, prevalent during the history of most developed countries, are
still pervasive in many areas of the developing world. The payments can be
substantial enough to affect the welfare of women and a society’s
distribution of wealth. Escalations in marriage payments have prompted
legislation to curb their spread, though typically to little avail. The
initial processes of development, which primarily increase economic
opportunities for men, cause marriage payments to act to the detriment of
women. Only after women gain equal returns to investments in their human
capital can marriage payments be expected to disappear.

Discussion of pros and cons

Most societies, at some point in their history,
have been characterized by payments at the time of marriage. Such payments
typically go hand-in-hand with marriages arranged by the parents of the
respective spouses.

Marital transfers come in various forms and sizes
but can be classified in two broad categories:

Transfers from the family of the bride to that of the groom,
broadly termed as “dowry.”

Transfers from the groom’s side to the bride’s, broadly termed as
“brideprice.”

The custom of brideprice dates
back to the ancient civilizations of the Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Hebrews,
Aztecs, and Incas. A valid marriage contract in Islamic law required a form
of brideprice. Classical China required the negotiation of a brideprice for
the validity of marriage and these transfers continue to be the norm in many
rural areas today. Brideprices are currently most prevalent in Africa; more
than 90% of sub-Saharan societies typically make such marriage payments [1].

The dowry system dates
back to at least the Greeks and Romans. In medieval western Europe and
later, dowries were a common practice among most social and economic groups.
Dowry payments were prevalent in Latin America until countries gained their
independence. In contemporary times, dowry is almost universal in India. In
other parts of South Asia, such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka,
paying a dowry at the time of marriage is increasingly common.

Characteristics of marriage
payments

Certain characteristics distinguish between
societies where the burden of marriage payments falls primarily on the
groom’s family and brideprices are paid—and those where the bulk of the
transfer comes from the bride’s family and dowries are paid. The general
pattern is that brideprice exists more frequently in tribal societies.
By contrast, dowry is typically associated with societies exhibiting
substantial socio-economic differentiation and class stratification.
This pattern is reflected in a comparison between dowry-paying India,
where the caste system presents perhaps an extreme example of social
stratification, and the more homogeneous tribal societies of sub-Saharan
Africa that practice brideprice.

Brideprice-paying societies are also
associated with a strong female role in agriculture. In particular,
brideprice is found in societies in which agriculture relies on light
tools (such as the hoe) and thus actively engages women. In contrast,
dowry is more common in heavy plough agriculture, where the role for
women is limited [2]. Because women generally join
the household of their groom at the time of marriage, brideprice is
typically considered to be the payment a husband owes to a bride’s
parents for the right to her labor and reproductive capabilities. The
amount of brideprice required has usually been rather uniform throughout
society, where the size is linked directly to the number of rights
transferred, and not to the wealth of the families [1].

Relative to brideprices, the amount of a
dowry varies substantially and tends to be negotiated on an individual
basis. Dowry typically arises in complex non-kinship-based societies,
with endogamous marriage practices: that is, where men and women from
families of equal social status marry. Dowry then becomes a means to
maintain social status by attracting a husband of at least equal
standing for one’s daughter. It correlates with strongly class-based
social systems where higher-level individuals—by virtue of wealth,
power, and possibly a claim to a superior hereditary status—do not
willingly intermarry with the lower levels. As a result, the amount of
dowry generally increases not only with the wealth of the bride’s father
but also with the groom’s future prospects.

There is typically a positive relationship
between the amount of dowry transferred and both sides’ household
wealth. In India, dowries are largest among the highest ranking castes
and wealthiest families [3]. Also in India, the
most important quality of a bride is usually a good appearance, whereas
for a groom it is the ability to earn a living, often reflected in his
educational level [4].

The use of brideprice has tended to correlate
with polygyny (men have more than one wife) and also with the
possibility of divorce. In contrast, in dowry-paying societies, monogamy
is the norm and divorce is rare.

In sub-Saharan Africa, a central purpose of
the brideprice is to create an alliance between kinship groups. As a
result, raising the brideprice is often the responsibility of the
groom’s extended lineage group, with the principal contributions coming
from his father, grandfather, and father’s brothers, and with the
mother’s brothers making small contributions. Likewise, since in this
setting the entire lineage group has rights to a woman, the brideprice
is distributed among many members of the bride’s extended family. In
this case, larger brideprices can arise with larger lineage groups.
Evidence from Kenya and Zimbabwe suggests that the amount of brideprice
can also depend on the expected number of children a woman will bear.
For example, a divorced woman who already has children will receive a
lower brideprice, whereas women who reach puberty earlier receive a
higher price.

Marriage payments differ not only by the
bearer of the financial burdens (either the grooms’ brideprice or the
brides’ dowry) but also by the ownership rights to these transfers,
which can vary and evolve through time. Payments from the groom’s side
are either transferred directly to the bride’s parents, formally termed
“brideprice,” or to the bride directly, commonly known as “dower.”
Similarly, payments from the bride’s parents can either go to the bride
herself, referred to as “dowry,” or be directly transferred to the groom
and his family, termed “groomprice,” to the exclusion of the bride. Both
dowry (as a pre-mortem inheritance) and dower are transfers that remain
with the conjugal couple but are the formal property of the wife
throughout the marriage.

Dower, which remains the property of the
bride, is most typical of traditional Islamic marriages and is often
associated with close-kin matching across cousins. A Muslim marriage
contract stipulates a sum of money (or any other valuables) that the
husband promises to give to the bride upon marriage. Customarily, the
dower is divided into a prompt proportion, which is payable immediately
at the marriage, and a deferred proportion, which is payable on the
termination of the marriage by death or by divorce initiated by the
husband. Under Islamic family law, only men have unilateral and
unconditional divorce rights. In many traditional settings, husbands can
divorce their wives without cause, attempt at mediation, judicial
oversight, or even informing their wives.

The institution of dower is most prevalent in
the Islamic countries of the Middle East and North Africa but also
co-exists with dowries in Bangladesh. All of the dower in Bangladesh is
automatically specified to be paid only in the case of a
husband-initiated divorce. There is some evidence that an important
price component of dowry in Bangladesh is compensation from brides to
grooms in exchange for the amount of dower specified in the marriage
contract.

That dowry is widespread in both Bangladesh
and Pakistan since partition from India is somewhat puzzling. There is
no consensus as to why dowry emerged in these two countries when the
system is non-existent and even shunned by religious leaders in the rest
of the Muslim world.

China is one of the few examples where
brideprice and dowry co-exist, with the brideprice being compulsory and
the dowry, which is more voluntary, typically financed with a return
portion of the brideprice. Taiwan also seems to follow this traditional
Chinese practice of exchanging marriage payments in both directions.
Other countries in Southeast Asia, such as Thailand, Indonesia, and
Burma, seem to transfer only brideprices.

Transformations in marriage
payments

Aside from societal characteristics
determining marriage payments, there are many instances when the
payments have changed within societies. The most dramatic changes have
been when payments have risen substantially. Such rises, particularly
for dowries, have often precipitated legislative and regulatory
initiatives to reduce their effect. Real dowries have been rising in
India for the last 70 years [5]. This increase
occurs while holding constant grooms’ and brides’ characteristics,
controlling for the wealth of both families, and imposing a real price
index. Estimates suggest that dowries have increased annually by 15% and
that families pay amounts equal to more than six times their annual
wealth. High-quality grooms can command well over US$100,000.

In comparison to dowry transfers, little
evidence exists of brideprice escalation in either the historical record
or contemporary sources. At times, colonial administrations in Africa
aimed to intervene, and missionaries typically discouraged the practice.
But these reactions seem to have been motivated by moral opposition to
the tradition rather than by financial pressures. The 1950 Chinese
Marriage Law prohibited the transfer of money or gifts in connection
with marriage and was aimed at limiting brideprice. Again, this law
seemed like an ideological attempt by communist revolutionaries aiming
to abolish the feudal marriage system, not a reaction to inflationary
pressures.

Ownership rights over marriage payments from
the brides’ side have undergone a trans­formation. Most commonly, the
traditional dowry transfer is considered to be the daughter’s pre-mortem
inheritance, which formally remains her property throughout
marriage.

In numerous instances, dowries as bequests
have given way to groomprices—that is, a direct transfer to grooms. This
transformation has been most dramatic in present-day India over the last
few decades. The traditional custom of stridhan, a parental gift to the bride, has changed into
modern-day groomprices that are highly contractual and obligatory [5]. Generally a bride is unable
to marry without providing such a payment. This transition in marriage
payments happened in a time of unprecedented opportunities for economic
mobility. Several studies connect the emergence of groomprice to
competition among brides for more desirable grooms. This transformation
into groomprice is also occurring in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Economics of marriage payments

The determinants of marriage payments are
consistent with economic models of the marriage market. These models are
useful in predicting the human capital effects of marriage payments. In
such models, men and women both possess varying qualities (or potential
incomes). Marriage is viewed as a joint venture that offers greater
efficiency in production (household, market, or both). Each person
chooses the mate who maximizes their utility. The marriage market
assigns mates and the distribution of returns among them. Optimal
sorting requires that no bride and groom can be made better off by
matching with someone else or by not marrying at all.

Usually an efficient marriage market exhibits
positive assortative mating, where high-quality men are matched with
high-quality women, and low-quality men are matched with low-quality
women [6]. This follows when husbands
and wives are complementary inputs into production and an efficient
market maximizes aggregate output, so that no person can improve their
marriage without making others worse off. The equilibrium division of
the marriage surplus between spouses is determined by these
conditions.

If the rule of division of output within the
marriage is inflexible, so that the share of income of each spouse is
not the same as under the market solution, then an up-front compensatory
transfer will be made between the spouses (or their kin) and efficiency
will be restored. Thus, if the wife’s share of family income is below
her shadow price in the marriage market, a brideprice will be paid by
the groom’s family to the bride or her family, and this transfer in
reverse is a dowry. The division of marital surplus is likely to be
inflexible given that household commodities like housing and children,
which are jointly consumed, are difficult to divide. Also legal
restrictions, social norms, or an implicit imbalance of power within the
household could restrict the efficient division of surplus. Therefore
this model predicts that marriage payments should be common.

This theoretical framework is consistent with
several of the facts presented here. The frequency and magnitude of
brideprices should be greater when wives’ input into production (like
agriculture) is relatively high and in societies with a high incidence
of polygyny, where there is greater competition by men for wives.
Alternatively, dowries will be observed when men’s contribution to
household income is relatively high and there is greater competition for
high-quality grooms from brides.

Economic forces and marriage
payments

Competition in the marriage market implies
that not only does the relative importance of male and female human
capital determine the direction and magnitude of marriage payments, but
so does the relative distribution of male and female human capital. That
is, because women are competing to attract a desirable groom in the
marriage market, her quality, relative to other potential brides, as
well as his quality, relative to other potential grooms, also matters.
In this sense processes of development alter the economic opportunities
of men and women and change the direction and magnitude of marriage
payments.

One can understand how brideprices are more
prominent in primitive tribal societies and dowries in more complex
socially stratified societies. In primitive tribal societies, men are
typically a homogenous group in their earning opportunities, as are
women. But where women have economic value of their own, through their
input into agricultural production, they receive a brideprice in
equilibrium.

Consider a development process where new
wage-earning opportunities open up for men, while drawing women into the
home. Women remain a homogenous group with less economic value while men
become a heterogeneous group differentiated by their wage-earning
capabilities. As a result, brides compete among themselves for the more
desirable grooms. Brides with wealthier fathers outbid poorer ones in
the marriage market and award dowries to the grooms with the higher
earning power. Thus dowry payments emerge due to quality differentiation
among grooms, as is found in socially stratified societies. This is
consistent with a development process where women do not directly reap
the benefits of modernization and men are the primary recipients of the
new economic opportunities.

Female human capital and marriage
payments

In dowry-paying societies, household budget
constraints imply that bridal families face a trade-off between
investing directly in their daughters’ human capital or saving for a
dowry to attract a desirable son-in-law. Parents are mindful of the fact
that investing directly in their daughters improves not only their
potential labor market outcomes but also their relative bargaining power
within their marital household. A lot of evidence shows that women’s
relative decisionmaking power within the household is higher the greater
her economic and employment opportunities are. At the same time, if
economic opportunities are relatively restricted for women, paying a
high dowry for a groom with high economic prospects could be more
worthwhile.

It is in this sense that one should expect to
see the dowry payments decline as the return to female human capital
increases. When female economic opportunities are sufficiently abundant,
dowries become an inferior way of providing brides with future wealth
relative to investing directly in their human capital. There is evidence
to suggest that this was a key reason for the eventual disappearance of
dowries in Europe [1]. But there is no evidence to
suggest that South Asia has reached this juncture, where dowries
continue to increase. Moreover, it has been demonstrated that, holding
groom quality constant, increasing the quality of brides (in education
and productivity) has had only a meager effect in reducing dowry
payments [7].

Legislation against marriage
payments

Marriage payments can take many different
forms, but no consensus exists on which of these forms, if any, are
welfare enhancing. In theory, brideprice could be interpreted as
explicit recognition and valuing of women’s productivity and
contribution to marriage. In practice, it often limits women’s control
over their bodies. Both sexually and in their labor, brideprice has long
been linked to domestic violence, owing to women’s fear of returning to
their natal home without being able to repay the brideprice. African
women’s rights campaigners advocate abolishing the practice—and have
linked it to the spread of HIV/AIDS, since brideprice as payment for
sexual rights leads to women’s loss of say in sexual protection and
frequency [8].

In theory, dowry, as a pre-mortem
inheritance, is set up to protect property given to women. But it often
seems to have been transformed into giving these property rights to men.
An even more significant factor is the magnitude of these payments. In
current-day South Asia, dowry payments can impoverish the bridal family
and dramatically affect the lives of unmarried women, who are
increasingly considered burdensome economic liabilities. The custom of
dowry in India has been linked to female infanticide and, among married
women, to “bride-burning” and “dowry-death”—that is, physical harm
visited on the wife (sometimes leading to death) to extract promised
dowry payments [9]. The National Crime Bureau of
the government of India reports approximately 10,000 dowry deaths every
year. Numerous incidents of dowry-related violence are never reported
and other estimates point to as many as 100,000 a year [10].

The Indian Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961
attempted to distinguish and discriminate between the two components of
the payment: the gift to the bride, and the transfer to the groom and
his parents. The aim was to abolish the groomprice but allow bridal
transfers to remain intact. The original law of 1961 continues to be
amended to address these issues, but the practice of dowry in India has
essentially continued unabated despite its illegal standing. The
Pakistani parliament first made efforts to reduce excessive expenditures
at marriage by an act in 1976. Following numerous complaints, the
Pakistan Law Commission reviewed dowry legislation and suggested an
amendment in 1993, updating the limits on dowries and adding a
sub-clause stating that grooms should be prohibited from demanding one.
Likewise, the escalation of the groomprice payments in Bangladesh led to
their being made a punishable offense by the Dowry Prohibition Act of
1980. (See Current marriage payment legislations
from around the world for a brief overview of laws enacted
around the globe.)

Limitations and gaps

Solid data on marriage payments are fairly rare.
Because of the legal considerations, individuals are at times hesitant to
talk freely on the topic. The descriptions of marriage payments provided
here are synthesized from a patchwork of studies across periods, places, and
even epochs, and there are doubtless numerous cases that remain
undocumented. More systematic data collection is needed for the magnitude of
these payments, their direction, their prevalence, and the property rights
over them.

Data on brideprices, relative to dowries, are
rarer still. The aspects of modernization that contribute to brideprice’s
decline are not well understood. Does economic development render women less
productive and reduce the demand for wives? The apparent reemergence of
brideprice in China is even less well understood. Might the biased sex
ratios in favor of males in China be affecting the marriage market and
creating brideprice pressures? This possibility could be formally
investigated with the collection of regional data on marriage payments to
compare with population rates and measures of female productivity.

Summary and policy advice

Payments at the time of marriage are ubiquitous
in developing countries. They can be substantial enough to impoverish
families and affect a society’s distribution of wealth. There is strong
evidence to suggest that marriage market payments are endogenously
determined by economic forces and environments. There is very little
empirical evidence to suggest that marriage payments enhance welfare,
particularly for women. This highlights the importance of promoting the
direct economic returns for women over legal or customary rights in
determining welfare. One reason is the weak reach of the legal system and
the state in many developing countries. A second is that marriage payments
will disappear once women reap more equal economic opportunities relative to
men.

To this end, governments should promote programs
to empower women, such as targeted micro-credit and employment schemes and
female educational subsidies. Non-governmental organization (NGO)
initiatives opposed to marriage payments and violence against women play an
important role.

BRAC, one of the world’s largest NGOs, has
successfully targeted millions of women throughout Asia and Africa, largely
through access to micro-credit. More recently, it has initiated projects
aimed at improving female empowerment at a young age. Its programs
simultaneously provide vocational training and information to adolescent
girls on sex, reproduction, and marriage. Evidence suggests that after just
two years of implementation the BRAC programs raised the likelihood that
girls engage in income-generating activities by 72%, and early entry into
marriage fell by 58%. Findings like these indicate that women’s economic and
social empowerment can be jump-started through the combined provision of
vocational and life skills, and is not necessarily held back by
insurmountable constraints arising from binding social norms.

Women’s political reservations raise awareness of
gender discrimination and improve female access to justice through the legal
system. Legislative quotas for women in elective office at the national
and/or subnational level are in force in 40 African countries and 19 Asian
countries. On the basis of evidence accumulated about the Indian experience,
exposure to a female leader weakens stereotypes about gender roles in the
public and domestic spheres and eliminates the negative perception bias in
the effectiveness of female leadership. After ten years of the quota policy,
women were more likely to stand for and win free seats in village
elections.

Female presence in national legislatures remains
very low worldwide. Placing more women in these positions of power should
have a significant impact on reforming and enforcing laws that protect the
rights of women.

Acknowledgments

The author thanks an anonymous referee and the
IZA World of Labor editors for many helpful suggestions on earlier
drafts.

Brideprice

The “brideprice,” also known as bride wealth or
price token, simply put, is property or money brought from the groom’s side
to the bride’s. The custom of brideprice dates back as far as 300 BCE and
continues today in places such as Thailand, Indonesia, Burma, China, and
Taiwan, although it is most prevalent in Africa, with more than 90% of
sub-Saharan societies making these marriage payments.Payments from the groom’s side are either passed
straight to the bride’s parents (called “bride price”) or to the bride
(called “dower”). Brideprice—passed to the parents—is standard in
sub-Saharan Africa, whereas dower—remaining the bride’s property throughout
marriage—is more common in traditional Islamic marriages.

Dowry

A dowry, simply put, is the property or money
that is brought from a bride’s side to the groom’s side, on their marriage.
The dowry system dates back to at least 200 BCE and has occurred largely in
Europe and Asia. The “dowry” is a payment from the bride’s parents to the
bride herself and it remains the formal property of the wife throughout the
marriage. However, the money from her parents can be directly transferred to
the groom (called “groom price”) to the exclusion of the bride.Although dowries were common practice in western
Europe during medieval times and were widespread in Mexico and Brazil during
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in modern times dowries are mostly
to be found in south Asia—in particular India, where dowries have long been
a custom and are currently virtually universal, although also increasingly
in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.

India: The Dowry
Prohibition Act 1961—valid throughout India except in Jammu and
Kashmir—prohibits the payment of a dowry under Indian civil law. This has
since been added to by Sections 304b and 498a of the Indian Penal Code.

Kenya: The Marriage
Act 2014 dropped plans to ban the payment of bride prices, although it does
limit dowry payments: “where dowry required, payment of a token amount’s
sufficient to prove marriage.”

Morocco: In Moroccan
law, it is expressly forbidden for the bride’s guardian to receive any
payment from the prospective groom in consideration of marriage.

Nepal: In Nepal, as in
many parts of Southeast Asia, the tradition of requiring a bride’s family to
provide a dowry is illegal but its practice is common. The dowry system was
banned completely by the Social Customs and Practices Act 2009.

Tanzania: Tanzania’s
Marriage Act of 1971 does not mention bride price as a prerequisite for
marriage, although the practice is widely accepted among the country’s
numerous ethnic communities.

Uganda: The Ugandan
Supreme Court has ruled that bride price should stay, despite recent
haggling over the Marriage and Divorce Bill; their ruling said that bride
price must stay because it is in line with African norms, virtues, and
traditions.